He closing longer than a government federal in the history of the USA seems to be approaching its end. Last Sunday, the Senate approved a financing proposal presented by members of the Republican Party and which, surprisingly, had the support support of eight Democratic senators.
This support allowed the proposition to reach 60 affirmative votes, thus breaking the so-called “filibuster” in American political jargon, that is, the right of the minority to legislative blockade.
Next, The proposal must be voted and approved in the House of Representativeswhere a simple majority of Republican congressmen should suffice. However, it should never be ruled out that someone may consider it a bad agreement and vote against it. It must be remembered that, in the United States, congressmen have wide freedom of movement and that it is understood that they represent the state or district that elected them and not so much the party for which they went to the polls.
If the House confirms the affirmative vote – it is in the hands of the “speaker” Mike Johnson set the date of the plenary session after almost two months of inactivity – only the president’s signature would remain Donald Trump and the federal government could open again after almost a month and a half.
The reason given by the eight Democratic senators for supporting the Republican proposal is that, whether they like the new funding or not, they cannot allow the chaos at the airports to continue, the SNAP program to help feed the disadvantaged to be on the verge of collapse, and federal officials to run the risk of going another month without payroll.
Leadership disagrees
Although all these reasons can be understood, what is not so easy to understand is why the Democratic Party has let the situation go this far without ensuring that there would not be splits within its own ranks later.
Throughout this time, the message had been clear: Trump intends to end aid to the vulnerable – especially the so-called “Obamacare“- and it is your responsibility not to reach an agreement. These eight affirmative votes they completely change the narrative and now it seems that it has been the Democrats who have unnecessarily delayed a decision that has harmed many.
This is not a trivial problem for the party leadership. The fact that so many senators have gone beyond the position established by the minority leader in the Senate, the veteran Chuck Schumer, and by the minority leader in the House, the presidential Hakeem Jeffries, is a tremendous blow that undermines those own leaderships. It’s not even a week since the excellent election results in Virginia, California and New York and the trouble is already back.
Proof of the confusion that reigns in the party is the fact that they have not even bothered to change the story. The electorate could have been sold that the change in position was a product of Republican intransigence and the pressing need to do something for the middle and lower classes. Instead, the disagreement has been made public, with clear statements from Schumer and Jeffries to that effect and the latter’s announcement that Democratic congressmen will not vote on the proposal when it reaches the House.
The final twist of this absurdity would be that, after having compromised the credibility of the party with the eight affirmative votes in the Senate, then Republican congressmen like Rand Paul would be the ones to shoot down the proposal in the House. Let us remember that the GOP majority is even slimmer than in the last legislature, with 219 seats compared to the Democrats’ 213. In other words, no more than three defections can be allowed.
Without a leader… and without a project
The image of a divided party without a clear message has been haunting the Democrats for more than a year, since the defeat of Kamala Harris against Donald Trump in the last presidential elections. Joe Biden’s vice president not only conceded in the electoral college, but also lost the popular vote, something that has not happened since 2004, when George W. Bush He beat John Kerry in the midst of nationalist euphoria after the military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Right now, Democrats are looking for a leader who is not directly linked to Barack Obama, who has de facto controlled the party since 2008, and a message that will help them recover the most vulnerable sectors of the population. Much of the party’s success has historically been based on its ability to rally the vote of racial, cultural and religious minorities.
However, the result of last November, with a considerable increase in the vote for Trump by the African-American minority and the broad Latino community, has left progressives completely confused.
Something similar happened in 2016, when the Democrats lost Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan at the same time, which led to the electoral defeat of Hillary Clinton – who, at least, did win the popular vote – and it was evident that the non-university lower classes of the industrial belts saw in MAGA populism a remedy to their despair, thanks to its nationalist and anti-establishment messages.
Without a leader and without a speech, since it is not known whether by 2028 the party will opt for a moderate profile like Newsom or a clearly left-wing and populist profile of the Mamdani style, the ability of the Democrats to overcome this crisis may determine their future in the short and medium term. Are bad times for social democracy and everything indicates that some are opting for “every man for himself.”